Arc 4: 02 Shock Therapy
by Macx
Summary: Optimus Prime tries to deal with his inner demon, a deeply routed fear ... of possessions and Tji.


**Shock Therapy**   
by Birgit Staebler

  


"Do you really think this is such a good idea?"   
Optimus Prime stood in front of the secure room, drawn between running away and going through with it. It had been his idea, his decision, and he wanted to go through with it.   
"Yes," he said firmly.   
The female robot at his side gave him a close look. Her emerald optics held his blue ones and he thought she was reading his mind. Sphere was not telepathic or empathic, but she seemed to know what was going through him.   
"Optimus, you don't have to prove anything," she said quietly.   
He stared at the closed doors. They were held in a mute gray color, totally neutral, no signs on them as to what lay behind. There was no control for the door opener. It went by signature detection. The room behind the door was empty, the walls of the strongest metal known to Cybertronian kind, shielded and unbreakable. Normally cameras were running, monitoring who was inside, but not today. Today it would be a private room, locked and sound-proof, as well as shot-proof. He had chosen it.   
"Maybe," he answered and stepped forward. The door opened automatically and Sphere followed.   
When the door had closed again, Optimus keyed in the locking sequence and they were alone in a featureless rectangle bare of any chairs or tables, anything you could use as a weapon. He hadn't come unarmed, though. He still had his weapons stored and accessible in subspace. Staring at the closed door and the key-pad he shut out everything he didn't need right now. All problems, all things still-to-do, all his scheduled appointments. No one knew he was here, not even his second-in-command, Rodimus Prime. If Rodimus had found about his plan, his experiment, he would have tried to stop Optimus. Prime couldn't let him do that. This had to happen! He knew that when this was over and he told his younger friend, Rodimus would most likely experience a fast rise in temper and an explosion of that would follow. Optimus was expecting nothing else.   
He turned to Sphere who stood erect, hands clasped in front of her, in the room. Her light blue and silver metallic body seemed to glow in the light of the room, her white hair cascading down her shoulders. But he wasn't just looking at a female robot he had met several decades ago. Sphere was much more. She had been borne as an organic, she had died helping Starscream get a new body, and she had been reborn by Ralyk as a robot, a Key. Sphere combined many trades inside her. She was Starscream's sister, at least the reborn Starscream's one, who knew how to handle the rather short-tempered Gatekeeper. She was Megatron's partner, or at least so the rumor mill went, and Optimus knew there was a grain of truth in every rumor. She was a Key to the Cybertronian centerway and as such held a very important position. And she was the Host to a creature that was the worst and most terrible of Prime's nightmares.   
That creature was why they were here now.   
Ranora.   
"Optimus?"   
Sphere's soft voice broke into his thoughts.   
"Yes?"   
"You are still confident you can do this?"   
There was no judgment in her voice. She would not go around and proclaim he had chickened out of this confrontation. She would accept it and she would help him accept her.   
"Yes," he managed.   
"I won't let Ranora materialize until both of you are comfortable with this."   
"Both of us?" he echoed.   
Sphere smiled. "She is just as terrified of this as you are, Optimus." Prime stared at her. "Optimus, you bear the Matrix. The Matrix can kill a Tji and it can kill Ranora if you aim it at her. It's lethal and if she materializes and can't go back into the Host space fast enough, she dies."   
"I didn't realize...." Optimus touched the closed chest plates behind which the Matrix sat. It pulsed warmly, reassuringly.   
Yes, the Matrix was as deadly as it was attractive to the Tji. They were drawn to it like moths to the fire and it would burn them. Ranora had been drawn to it when he had been lost inside Cybertron, trying to find a way out, and it had nearly driven him insane.   


Not far away, just a few feet down the tunnel, a luminous body of energy hovered. It sparkled faintly. It didn't look overly beautiful, as expected of an energy life-form. The body was like a tangled string of wool, unraveling here or there, tentacle-like extension swinging back and forth. The color of the body was a bluish yellow, looking like an unwashed piece of cloth.   


Sphere nodded. "You can kill her, Prime. Remember this. Ranora is a warrior, but with a big disadvantage."   
"I won't hurt her."   
Part of him wanted to hurt her though. Badly hurt her, kill her, dismember her..... Optimus fought those thoughts valiantly, but whenever he was reminded of the Tji, he was reminded of the slaughter they had spread among his kind.   
"I'll let you two talk now," Sphere interrupter his dark thinking. "If you feel uncomfortable any time, say it. Don't force yourself to do anything you don't feel secure with," Sphere continued.   
Optimus nodded. "Okay," he whispered.   
And then the light in Sphere's optics died. It was a frightening sight. In any other robot it would be the sign that the Tji had killed the personality, had taken over the body shell, and that it was now the enemy, no longer a friend. But Sphere was still in there .... Optimus hoped. He felt a chill pass through him at the thought that Ranora might just have waited for this moment, that he was now facing a Tji in a dead shell. But the skin was still its healthy color and not covered by the grayish film he knew indicated a Tji possession.   
"Sphere is fine," a voice said.   
It wasn't Sphere's voice, but it sounded slightly like her. This voice had an accent, was a tiny bit tremulous and deeper.   
"Ranora?" Optimus heard himself ask.   
Sphere/Ranora nodded. "Yes. Sphere gave me access to the outside world, but most of my body is still inside the Host space." She hesitated.   
Optimus didn't know where to start. Why had he wanted this? Answer: to confront his fear, his terror -- his demon. It overcame him every time he thought of what was still among them: Tji. Many were still hiding out on Cybertron, the last survivors of a race that had been hell-bent on destroying Cybertron and every Cybertronian in the galaxy. His fear had once very nearly driven him over the edge, had almost killed Rodimus and it was haunting him since then.   
"Optimus Prime, I am sorry for what I did to you," Ranora suddenly said.   
His head came up and he stared at her. She was sorry? Ranora?   
"What?" he blurted.   
"I hurt you."   
"But....," he shook his head, "no, I hurt myself."   
She gazed thoughtfully at the larger Autobot. "I hurt your soul because I haunted you down in the tunnels, because I followed the trace of the Matrix."   
"You followed me out of survival instincts," Optimus heard himself say.   
Ranora smiled dimly. "Maybe. I was driven by the possibility to find a matrix. I never realized it wasn't a Venerakkin matrix, but the Matrix of the Autobot leader." She gazed thoughtfully at the floor. "And even when I had realized it, I didn't want to back down. I thought it was my only way to survive."   
"It was."   
"Yes, maybe."   
"Without Sphere you would be dead today," Optimus reminded her, surprised at how easy it was to talk to the Tji.   
"Without Sphere I would be many things," Ranora admitted softly. "I don't think I would have survived touching your Matrix anyway. Still, my presence hurt you and the wound hasn't closed. I know what happened and what you did and went through. I apologize sincerely for it, though I know nothing can undo what has happened."   
"True," Optimus conceded. "Nothing can undo the past. And it hurt a lot at the time and still does."   
Guilt crossed the well-known but now alien features. "You were touched by one of us before," she said almost inaudibly.   
Optimus winced, his mind flinging wildly back to that moment in his past.   
Firebird.....   
The touch.   


He screamed in agony as something cold and slimy invaded him, tore through his mind. White-hot pain raced through him and his circuits screamed as they were overloaded by an energy he didn't know. He thought his memory circuits were bursting and something slipped into his body.   
The Matrix revolted, first recoiling, then fighting back, pushing the invader away.   
The evil presence withdrew and left him alone.   
Weak and dying.   


"I don't know what it does to one of your kind when we touch you, but I assure you, I never wanted to repeat the procedure. I watched too many of those .... possessions." She clasped her hands, then stared at them as if they were alien objects. For a Tji they were.   
"Why ... why did you defect?" Optimus asked.   
"Because I had enough," Ranora answered. "I am a warrior, but I was not born and trained to slaughter." She spread her hands. "You see, Tji society is not...." She stopped, pain crossing her features, "was not...," Ranora corrected herself softly, "it was not built on war and conquest. We are like the Veneran, we *are* the Veneran. The Tji just split from the main group a long time ago because of ethic differences. We didn't start hunting your kind immediately. Think of it as two scientific groups, just working with different ideals and methods. But our group changed. Our leaders encouraged warriors and workers, not the scientists and thinkers. Philosophy, science, all was suddenly of less importance. The art of war, the thrill of fighting, the battles, the victories, all took prime importance."   
Ranora stopped and evaded his burning optics. Optimus tried to imagine the changes inside a society of energy beings set out to explore the life and the universe in a whole, now becoming ruthless warriors and determined to kill what they had created. In a way, it was like Cybertron, he realized. They had coexisted peacefully, had strived toward ideals, only to bury these ideals in a war no one really understood now. Why had it begun? Because of ideals? Because of opinions? Because of misunderstood priorities? Had Autobots and Decepticons really been that different? Looking back, Optimus Prime realized that this war, the Civil War, had destroyed more than it had done good. Most of all it had almost completely destroyed their sense to make peace with one another. No one had been willing to make the first step and it had taken a superior enemy to band them together in an alliance that was miraculously still holding.   
The Tji had forged them back into one race, the Cybertronians.   
Ironic, wasn't it?   
But it had happened and not only that. The Sentinels were back home among them as well, all reunited now, under the lead of the Council. Miracles do happen.... sometimes they just took longer to do so. Sometimes even millions of years.....   
"Did you ever kill one of us?" he now asked a question that was weighing heavily on him and to which he somehow already knew the answer.   
Ranora hesitated. "Yes," she finally whispered. "I killed your kind. I killed the one whose body shell I took."   
"Did you get to know him before he died?"   
Ranora looked at him, then sighed. "Yes. You get to know your victim because you wade through his mind to his personality core and erase it. It happened within a second, but you live his whole life in that time....." She shivered.   
"What was his name?"   
The dead optics were suddenly full of pain and it Optimus just how much Sphere was Ranora right now.   
"Who?" he still demanded, voce dropping a few degrees.   
"WipeOut," she answered.   
Optimus froze. WipeOut. The name echoed in his head. No.... not him! He had imagined every possible robot, but not WipeOut! WipeOut was a very good friend... had been a very good friend. They had gone way back into a past where Optimus Prime had gone by the name of Orion Pax. They had grown together, had laughed and shared pranks together, had even fought for Ariel's affection. Orion had won and WipeOut had good-naturedly given up.   
Now he was dead.   
Killed by the accursed Tji!   
"I'm sorry....." Ranora whispered.   
"You are a murderer," he burst out, anger riding on the wave of pain. All his dead friends seemed to pop up in front of his glowing optics, parading in a silent accusing army, joined by the ranks of those who had died as well, those he had never really gotten to know for real, just names and faces in the crowd. "You killed my kind in cold blood!" He walked toward the slender and smaller robot, towering over her.   
Ranora shrank back in fear. "I had no other choice!" she cried. "I didn't know what would happen until it happened! I had no chance to keep him alive like Jaimaa did with her host. It happened too fast!"   


Something cold and slimy invaded him, tore through his mind. White-hot pain raced through him and his circuits screamed as they were overloaded by an energy he didn't know. He thought his memory circuits were bursting and something slipped into his body.   


Optimus' optics flared bright blue and his fingers flexed. He knew what it felt like to be invaded by a Tji and he could only imagine what it had been like for those kidnapped, totally helpless, unable to flee, not knowing what was happening to them.   
He felt pressure build up inside him, searching for a vent. His optics were fixed on the light blue and silver form. It would be so easy to kill her now, to get rid of the hated presence.   
The Matrix pulsed softly. Its energy spread through him, calming and reassuring in one. Ranora whimpered and sank down on the floor, curling up, shaking. The Matrix's energy grew in strength and there was a keening sound from the floor.   
Optimus snapped out of his hatred all of a sudden and stumbled two steps back. "No!" he exclaimed.   
The Matrix energy died down. It had reacted to his panic, had soothed him, but in doing so it had started to hurt Ranora. No, he couldn't let that happen, though a part inside of him said to go through with it. Get rid of the creature! Optimus shook his head. He wouldn't fall for revenge and pay-back. Everyone had suffered enough already. All of them, including Ranora.   
"I .... I'm sorry," he whispered.   
Ranora looked up at him, wariness crossing her features. She slowly got to her feet, back pressed against the wall.   
"I never wanted to hurt you," she said, voice trembling   
"I know. We are aliens and we have to get used to being different."   
"We have to get used to being lethal for each other," Ranora corrected him calmly.   
Optimus nodded. "I.... I'd like to see you personally," he suddenly said.   
Panic erupted inside Ranora. "No!"   
"I want to face you," Prime continued.   
She shook her head. "It won't help."   
"Maybe; maybe now. But I have to face my demons."   
"Me."   
"Yes."   
Their optics met and Ranora trembled more. Then she walked away from him to the other side of the room. There she stopped and her hands curled into fists.   
Suddenly something shimmered around Sphere's chest area. It was a beautiful white, turning into a less beautiful but still energetic yellowish-white. Something stretched, extended, grew,

-- slithering, twisting, pseudopodic tentacles reaching out for him --   


Optimus felt an electric jolt run through him. Panic crept into his waking mind.   
He watched in silent horror as a Tji materialized out of Sphere, glinting softly with a light that came from inside it. He couldn't move, frozen to the spot as he continued watching.   
Ranora withdrew her last body part from the security of her host body, hovering in front of him.   
"Optimus?"   
The voice was still the accented one from before and still female. Optimus felt cold, his fuel pump racing, his mind feverish bright with a tumble of memories. He fought against them but their noise was drowning out everything else.   
A wheeze escaped his air intakes.   
A small hand closed around his arm and he flinched away, wild optics staring at the figure at his side.   
"She is not going to hurt you, Optimus Prime," Sphere said softly.   
"Sphere ...?" he stuttered.   
"Yes, it's me. I think you have taken on more than you can deal with."   
Optimus desperately shook his head. "No. I can do this." He forced his optics back at Ranora. She had not left her position and he wondered how Sphere had so quickly arrived at his side.   
Prime had face so many dangers in the past, had fought Decepticons while almost getting killed himself, had faced alien monsters, had faced even death itself. But he had never felt this mind-numbing fear, this creeping coldness, the blackness lurking in the back of his mind, ready to swallow him. He didn't mind injuries, shots and stabs, poisonous liquids or gases, but something touching his very mind was freaking him out.   
Ranora's tentacles moved faintly, as if there was a faint breeze in the room, and she looked much better than the day he had last seen her. Gone was the washed out appearance, the dirty yellow color. She looked healthy.

-- Healthy and strong enough to take him over --

No! He battled his darker side and managed to take a step forward. A ripple seemed to pass through the Tji. Optimus stretched out one hand.   
"Optimus...." Sphere started.   
He ignored her.   
"Ranora?" he addressed the Tji.   
She inched closer, coiled up and visibly tense, ready to flee. "It will hurt you," she said with a wavering voice.   
"And it will heal me."   
Maybe. Maybe not. There were so many possibilities as to what might happen. This way, the one he had chosen, was the most painful and dangerous, at least for him. He was trying out shock therapy, facing his worst nightmare, confronting it with his waking mind, and hopefully winning. He had to win. His sanity depended on it. A whole society depended on it ... on him. He was the Autobot leader. He couldn't give in to his demons.   
A thin, almost purely white tentacle reached for him. Optimus fought down every instinct to flee and left his hand outstretched. The tentacle closed the distance and suddenly he felt the tingling touch of energy against his index finger tip.   
A whirlpool of memories broke loose, accompanied by emotions so strong they drowned out everything else. Optimus felt like he was swaying on his feet, like he was tumbling and falling, like he was rooted down and nothing could move him, frozen and solid. Everything in one. He heard his screams, he heard his silence, he felt his tremors and nothing at all. The Matrix flared and he died; he woke and it was gone.   
And then it was over. As suddenly as it had come, the wave broke into a mere droplet of water, one of infinite numbers in a sea of calm water. Peace wove through him, wrapping him into a warm blanket.   
Optimus let his optics light up and found he was sitting with his back against the wall of the secure room. When he looked up he met the warm and compassionate optics of Sphere.   
"Optimus?" she asked.   
"Yes.... What .... what happened?"   
She smiled. "You keeled over."   
"Oh." His mind was slow and he seemed to take seconds just to formulate a thought. "Why?" was all he could think of.   
"I think you overloaded your CPU the moment Ranora touched you."   
"Where .. where is she? I felt the Matrix...." Slight panic spread inside of him.   
"She is fine. The Matrix energy did not harm her." Sphere stretched out one hand and Optimus took it, surprised at how strong she was when she pulled him up. "How do you feel?"   
Yes, how did he feel? Optimus thought about it, running an instinctive self-check and coming up fully functional. His mind was calm and even, no sudden spikes of fear or panic hitting him, though there was still an underlying dread of Tji. But it was no longer so vivid and horrifying as before.   
"I think ..... I think I'm fine."   
A smile crossed over her features.   
Optimus dimmed his optics, feeling a tremor pass through him. It was over. He had done it. And he had come out of the ordeal; maybe not better but at least on the right way to be better in the future.   
"Thank you," he now addressed the female Key. "Both of you."   
Sphere's small hand was still touching his arm. It felt oddly surreal, warm and tingling where her fingers touched him, but it was like an anchor while his mind was busy smoothing out his processing.   
"You are welcome. You should take it easy for today, maybe even tomorrow, Optimus," she advised.   
"I will," he promised.   
They carefully, almost hesitantly left the room, the door sliding noiselessly shut behind them. When they reached the elevators, Optimus turned to his silent companion.   
"Are you starting your next shift now?" he asked.   
Sphere shook her head. "No, not until tonight."   
Optimus hesitated briefly. "Care for a drink?"   
She smiled. "Only if you are paying, Prime."   
He chuckled. "Of course."   
The elevator arrived and both got in. Optimus was still not very comfortable around the Host, knowing that the Tji was inside this slender, light colored robot, but he was starting to accept it. Just like he had accepted the Venerakkin and their strange ways. Just like he had to accept changes among his kind. They all had still a very long way to go and accept more than just another's presence.   
But he had at least taken a first step to erase one of his nightmares.   
It was a beginning.   



End file.
